Invictus [Tom Riddle / Tomione]

The Leaky Cauldron

February 7, 1948

The top floor of the Leaky Cauldron housed a large meeting room. The room was rather dimly lit and gloomy, but its history was legend. This room had been used by many politicians, Ministers, ministry officials, and influential wizards for meetings of the minds.

Tom chose it for its political significance, as well as its geographical convenience. The outer courtyard led to the entrances for both Diagon and Knockturn Alley, which made it an easy escape for Tom when he needed to leave for his job at Borgin and Burkes.

He checked his watch. He had approximately forty-six minutes until he would need to end the meeting.

Twice a month, on a given Saturday, at seven o'clock in the morning, Tom met with his Death Eaters to discuss their social and political strategies. He often used these meetings to gauge their worth and usefulness. He also took the opportunity to fill their heads with the useless tripe they wanted to hear. He was so used to casually manipulating them that it had become like second nature.

His Death Eaters sat around him now. He glanced around him at the collection of faces. Nott, Malfoy, Mulciber, Rosier, Rookwood, MacNair, Lestrange, Dolohov, Avery...

They spoke amongst themselves, eating breakfast, drinking tea, and waiting for Tom to call the meeting to order.

Usually, Tom hated wasting time. He generally kept himself to tight time constraints, but this morning, he was pensive. His mind wandered, drowning out the voices of his colleagues.

Tom Riddle had been presented with a riddle.

And the riddle's name was... Hermione .

He couldn't shake the encounter he'd had with a young woman in Diagon Alley.

The girl was pretty, he supposed. Passably pretty, at least.

She did have smooth skin, fine dark brows, warm eyes, a deliciously trim waist... She certainly wasn't the most handsome woman he'd ever met. But she was attractive, he could admit.

However, her meager amount of charm wasn't the reason he couldn't get her out of his head.

Fear . He'd seen it in her eyes when he'd introduced himself. She had blatantly refused to take his hand. What had he said to invoke such fear ? He was sure he had never met this girl before. He racked his brain, occluding, flipping through the files of his carefully organized memories to ensure there was no such engagement that he'd forgotten. No, he was sure of it.

Addicting . That's what it was.

She'd looked at him with the kind of fear and turmoil that he hoped the entire wizarding world would one day bestow upon him.

It made him feel immensely powerful .

He'd had fantasies, imagining that kind of fear in the eyes of his enemies. The thin skin around the eye widening, stretching, pupil contracting, pulse racing...

He wanted Dumbledore to feel that kind of terror. For Voldemort .

Intoxicating. Tom fixated on the feeling. He couldn't help his little fixations . He often gave into them, for with them came a kind of clarity, the ability to see things that others often overlooked, to sense lies and intentions with razor-sharp accuracy, to command an aerial view of a situation.

He imagined the look in the girl's eyes, over and over again. He imagined the young woman on her knees before him, her heart pounding in her chest, gazing up at him with those wide, whiskey-brown eyes...